PMY_Marquis 630 - Marquis Yachts

Although I’ve backed a whole slew of vessels
into a whole slew of slips over the years,
under a whole slew of conditions, the exercise
still produces a twinge or two of the
same old anxious excitement I felt the first
time out. So turning our new Marquis 630
into one of the fairways at Ft. Lauderdale’s
Pier 66 Marina engendered a shot of uneasy
elation that was altogether familiar.
Conditions were okay. The wind was gusty
and blowing directly into the mouth of the
slip I was heading for. There seemed to be little
current from what I could tell by looking
at the pilings in the water. And the boat’s two
Volvo Penta IPS1200s—the most powerful
pod-type propulsion plant Volvo’s put on the
market to date—seemed responsive.
“Where you been puttin’ the bow when
you turn her around,” I asked Steve Martin
of YachtBlue (www.yachtblue.net), Marquis
Yachts’ local dealer. As the boat’s captain, I
figured he’d have a sensible backdown plan
already worked out that I might use myself.
“That empty slip on the other side—
then kinda go sideways while you’re going
astern,” Martin replied in a clipped New
Zealand accent.
Because of the fairway’s layout, as well
as a few obtruding bow pulpits, following
Martin’s advice required a little backing
and filling before I began a careful rotation.
And, slow learner that I am, I was well into
the process, with the stern almost lined up
on the slip’s entrance pilings, when it finally
dawned on me—Geez! I was overdoing the
IPS joystick’s throttle function big time.
Indeed, turning the top of the stick until I
could hear a rise in engine pitch put way too
much power into the water. What worked a
lot better, I saw, was merely twisting the top
by an eighth of an inch or so, which made
the boat respond elegantly, dynamically,
and almost instantaneously.
Wow! The sense of control that resulted
was enormous, in spite of the occasional
buffeting from the gusts. “I guess it’s because
the props are big and the engines have
so much low-end torque,” I opined to Martin
as he began heading below to handle our
lines, “but this is by far the sweetest IPS boat
I’ve ever operated.”
Martin paused and grinned. The maneuvering
smoothness I was enjoying, he then
suggested, was also seriously bolstered by an
almost total lack of low-end drive rumble
and the noise that goes with it. A new, standard-issue
feature from Volvo called Clean
Wake Exhaust System or CWES, he continued,
was automatically rerouting much of
the 630’s idle-speed exhaust from her drive
units to a set of muffler-equipped hullside
relief ports aft and above the waterline, an
Modern European styling highlights the galley
(above), saloon (opposite), and the master.
Photos By Neil Rabinowitz
arrangement that was both smoothifying
and hushifying our docking experience.
I got a better look at the system once
we’d got tied up. After entering the engine
room via a beefy, watertight transom door,
a short descending stairway, a crew-quarters
hallway, and then another watertight
door, Martin and I were able to see our
CWES componentry crisply installed at
the rear. Essentially, it consisted of an array
of mufflers, electronically controlled
valves, piping, couplings, and exhaust diverters.
“Comes from the sportfishing side
where a smooth, clear, bubble-free wake’s
important for trolling,” Martin said, “but
the principle’s obviously useful onboard a
boat like this.”
LOA: 65'8"
BEAM: 17'2"
DRAFT: 4'6"
DISPL.: 71,500 lb.
FUEL: 1,030 gal.
WATER: 160 gal.
TEST POWER: 2/900-hp Volvo Penta IPS1200s
TRANSMISSION: Volvo Penta IPS1200
w/ 1.88:1 ratio
PROPULSION: IPS Pod drives w/Volvo Penta
Q3 propset
OPTIONAL POWER: None
GENERATOR: 1/23 kW Kohler
BASE PRICE: $2,650,000
PRICE AS TESTED: $2,870,000
Noteworthy Options:
Crew quarters $9,685; bridge hardtop with
retractable canvas sunroof $32,200; bridge
wet bar with Raritan ice maker $2,385; Norcold
refrigerator $2,070 and Kenyon s/s grill $2,310
40 POWER & MOTORYACHT / JUNE 2012 WWW.PMYMAG.COM WWW.PMYMAG.COM
JUNE 2012 / POWER & MOTORYACHT 41